ai4bharat/Pralekha huggingface dataset:
Ministry of Tourism
Union Minister of State for Tourism Shri Prahlad Singh Patel virtually inaugurates world class “Thenzawl Golf Resort” project implemented in Mizoram under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme
Union Minister of State for Culture & Tourism  Shri Prahlad Singh Patel virtually inaugurated the “Thenzawl Golf Resort” Project implemented under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme of Ministry of Tourism, Government of India in the presence of Tourism Minister of MizoramShri Robert RomawiaRoyte and Commissioner and Secretary for Tourism Department of Government of MizoramSmt. Esther LalRuatkimi in New Delhi today.
The Project was sanctioned under the Integrated Development of New Eco Tourism under Swadesh Darshan- North East Circuit at Thenzawl& South Zote, District Serchhip and Reiek, Mizoram with a sanctioned amount of Rs.92.25 Crore out of which an amount of Rs.64.48 Crore was sanctioned for various components at Thenzawl including the Golf Course.
Golf tourism in India particularly, has a strong potential since the climatic condition is more favourable here as compared to most countries. The picturesque landscapes of the country and exceptional hospitality services too, add to the enhanced experience of golf tourism in India. Today India boasts of more than 230 golf courses in all. The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India endeavours to work as a catalyst and active supporter for the development of Golf Tourism in the country. India has several golf courses of international standards and golf events held in India also attract domestic and international tourists. In order to tap the growing interest in golf tourism, the Ministry of Tourism is creating a comprehensive and coordinated framework for promoting golf tourism in India as a niche tourism product for attracting both International and domestic tourists.
The Golf Course at Thenzawl is designed by Graham Cooke and Associates, one of the top-ranked Canada based Golf Course architectural firm. The total site area is 105 acres and the play area is 75 acres - 18 Hole Golf Course with Sharing Fairway and automated sprinkler irrigation system by Rain Bird, USA. It is designed to have facilities of international standards. There are 30 Eco-Log Huts, Cafeteria, Open Air Food Court, Reception area and Waiting Lounge etc, all constructed with Siberian Pinewood and fully furnished with world class furniture and fixtures.
The competitive advantage of Thenzawl Golf Course is that it will provide quality golfing experience and international facilities at a fair price.
Ministry of Power
Over 7 lakh smart meters sanctioned
Seamless online billing and digital payment of bills for consumers
Smart meters playing pivotal role in integration of Renewable Energy Resources
As per Para 8.4.3 of Tariff Policy 2016 “the Appropriate Commission may provide incentives to encourage metering and billing based on metered tariffs, particularly for consumer categories that are presently unmetered to a large extent. The metered tariffs and the incentives should be given wide publicity. Smart meters have the advantages of remote metering and billing, implementation of peak and off-peak tariff and demand side management through demand response. These would become essential in future for load-generation balancing due to increasing penetration of intermittent type of generation like wind and solar power.
Appropriate Commission shall, therefore, mandate smart meters for:
 Consumers with monthly consumption of 500 units and more at the earliest but not later than 31.12.2017
 Consumers with monthly consumption above 200 units by 31.12.2019”.
The aims and objectives of installing Smart Meters are to help consumers in seamless online billing process & digital payment of bills; having access to real time tracking of electricity usage; helping consumers track their consumption patterns and adopt more energy-efficient behaviours and appliances; offering them an option to pre-pay for electricity based on their requirements and thus be in control of their total energy spends; enable time of day metering and thus, playing a pivotal role in the integration of renewable power; helping DISCOMs function remotely by eliminating manual collections and reduced AT&C losses.
Under National Smart Grid Mission , 7.23 lakh smart meters have been sanctioned. State-wise/project-wise details are as under:
- Chandigarh  – 29500 installation is in progress and is scheduled to be completed by March 2022.
- Chandigarh  – 184000 scheduled to be completed by March 2022.
- Jharkhand  – 360000 tendering is in process and is scheduled to be completed by March 2024.
- Rajasthan  – 150000 installation is in progress and is scheduled to be completed by March 2022.
This information was given by Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, Shri R.K. Singh in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
Ministry of Defence
General Bipin Rawat Appointed as Chief of Defence Staff
Government has decided to appoint General Bipin Rawat, as the Chief of Defence Staff  with effect from December 31, 2019 and until further orders and extension in service of General Bipin Rawat with December 31, 2019 and till such period he holds the office of CDS.
General Bipin Rawat was commissioned into the Indian Army in December 1978 and is currently serving as Chief of the Army Staff since January 01, 2017.
The officer is decorated with PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, YSM, SM, VSM and ADC to the Supreme Commander.
ABB/SS/Nampi/DK/Rajib
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Prime Minister's Office
PM's Statement prior to his departure to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore
Following is the text of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's departure statement prior to his visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
"I will be visiting Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore on 29 May – 2 June 2018. India has a robust strategic partnership with all the three countries.
On 29 May, I will be in Jakarta on the invitation of Indonesian Presiden Joko Widodo. This is my first visit to Indonesia as Prime Minister. I am looking forward to my discussions with President Widodo on 30 May, as also to our joint interaction with the India-Indonesia CEOs Forum. I will also address the Indian Community in Indonesia.
India and Indonesia enjoy strong and friendly ties and share deep historical and civilizational linkages. Both countries are multi ethnic, multi religious, plural and open societies. I am confident that my visit to Indonesia will create greater synergy between Asia’s two largest democracies and further elevate our bilateral ties.
On 31 May, on my way to Singapore, I will make a brief halt in Malaysia to congratulate the new Malaysian leadership. I look forward to meet Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
In Singapore I will be focusing on enhancing India-Singapore partnership in areas of Fintech, skill development, urban planning and artificial intelligence. Singapore entities have become major partners with India in areas like urban development, planning, smart cities and infrastructure development. My visit in Singapore presents an opportunity for both countries to engage further.
On 31 May, I will visit the India-Singapore enterprise and innovation exhibition. I will also address a business and community event followed by a roundtable meeting with select top CEOs of Singapore to discuss business and investment opportunities.
On 1 June, I will call on Singapore President Halimah Yacob. I will also hold delegation level talks with Singapore Prime Minister Lee, and am looking forward to my visit to the Nanyang Technological University where I would interact with young students.
That evening, I will deliver the keynote address at Shangri-La Dialogue. This will be the first time that an Indian Prime Minister would deliver this address. It would be an opportunity to articulate India’s point of view on regional security issues and maintenance of peace and stability in the region.
On 2 June, I will unveil a plaque at Clifford Pier, where Gandhiji’s ashes were immersed in sea on 27 March 1948. I would also visit some places of worship that have civilizational linkages with India.
The last element of my programme would be a visit to the Changi Naval Base in Singapore where I will visit the Indian Naval Ship INS Satpura and interact with officers and sailors of the Indian Navy and Royal Singapore Navy.
I am confident that my visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore will provide a further boost to our Act East Policy and enhance our relations and engagements with all the three countries."
Ministry of Culture
Union Culture Ministry to organise Yog and cultural programmes at 4 places in Maharashtra on the occasion of International Yog Day
The Union Culture Ministry will celebrate 'International Yoga Day' on 21, June this year under the 'Yoga is an Indian Heritage' campaign.
Yoga Day will be celebrated at 75 cultural places in the country, and there will be 45 minutes of Yog followed by 30 minutes of cultural program. Four cites in Maharashtra have been selected for this campaign which are - Aga Khan Palace, Pune, Kanheri Caves, Mumbai, Ellora Caves, Aurangabad, and Old High Court Building, Nagpur. These four monuments are centrally protected monuments of national importance.
Aga Khan Palace, Pune and Kanheri Caves, Mumbai come under Archaeological Survey of India, Mumbai circle and Ellora Caves, Aurangabad come under, Archaeological Survey of India, Aurangabad circle whereas Old High Court Building, Nagpur comes under Archaeological survey of India, Nagpur Circle.
In Mumbai circle and Nagpur Circle respectively in the campuses located at Aga Khan Palace, Pune and Old High Court Building, Nagpur, a yoga instructor will perform Yog from 7 am to 7.30 am and a Cultural program will be organized by South-Central Zone Cultural Center, Nagpur, from 7.30 am to 8.15 am.
Whereas in Mumbai Circle and Aurangabad Circle, Kanheri Caves, Mumbai and Ellora Caves respectively in the campuses located in Aurangabad, a Yoga instructor will perform yoga from 7 am to 7.30 am, and thereafter the Sangeet Natak Akademi will organize a cultural program till 8.15 am.
Ministry of Culture has also organised demonstration of Common Yoga Protocol  at 75 heritage monuments across the country. As part of this, demonstration of CYP is being held at Nehru Science Center, Worli too.
The programmes in Pune and Nagpur will be live-stremed on Doordarshan.
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Rojgar Mela is a big step towards India's self-reliance - Union Minister of State for Environment and Climate Change Ashwini Kumar Choubey
108 candidates who got jobs in various 14 departments of the Central Govt. given appointment letters under Rojgar Mela
Nagpur 20 January 2023
108 candidates who got jobs in various 14 departments of Central Government namely Geological Survey of India, Indian Bureau of Mines, Income Tax, Postal Department, Statistics Department, Employees Provident Fund Organisation, AIIMS, Employees Insurance Society Corporation, Central Board of Direct Taxes were given appointment letter under Rojgar Mela. This step is going to be a big step towards self-reliant India, Union Minister of State for Environment and Climate Change Ashwini Kumar Choubey asserted today in Nagpur. On this occasion, Principal Income Tax Commissioner of Nagpur Division K.M. Bali, Principal Director General of National Direct Tax Academy – NADT Sanjay Puri, EPFO Commissioner Shekhar Kumar were mainly present.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi distributed 71,000 appointment letters across the country through video conferencing. In Nagpur, appointment letters were also distributed in the auditorium of National Fire Service College - NFSC, Rajnagar, in the presence of Ashwini Kumar Choubey. On this occasion, along with Choubey, senior officials of Income Tax, EPFO, Goods and Services Tax Department watched the live telecast of the Prime Minister's address. Officials of Income Tax, Goods and Services Tax, ESIC, Postal Department, Railway Department were present in this job fair.
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Cabinet Secretariat
Cabinet Secretary reviews COVID situation in 13 worst affected cities
Cabinet Secretary held a meeting with Municipal Commissioners, District Magistrates of 13 COVID-19 hit cities to take a review of the situation. Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories concerned attended the meeting.
The meeting bears significance as these 13 cities are considered to be the worst Coronavirus affected locations and constitute about 70 per cent of the positive cases in the country.
The 13 focus cities are Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi / New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Thane, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata / Howrah, Indore , Jaipur, Jodhpur, Chengalpattu and Thiruvallur .
The measures taken by the officials and the staff of the municipal corporations for the management of COVID-19 cases were reviewed in the meeting.
The central government has already issued guidelines on management of COVID-19 in urban settlements.
Highlights of this strategy include work on high risk factors, indices such as confirmation rate, fatality rate, doubling rate, tests per million people etc.
Centre has stressed that containment zones are to be geographically defined based on factors like mapping of cases and contacts and their geographical dispersion. This would enable in demarcating a well defined perimeter and enforcing the strict protocol of lockdown.
Municipal corporations can decide if residential colonies, mohallas, municipal wards or police-station areas, municipal zones, towns can be designated as containment zones, as required.
The cities were advised that the area should be appropriately defined by the district administration and local urban body with technical inputs from local level.
Ministry of Defence
INDIAN NAVY BIDS FAREWELL TO COMMANDER NISHANT SINGH
Commander Nishant Singh, a fighter pilot of the Indian Navy, was laid to rest with full military honours at Goa on 11 Dec 20. Commander Nishant did not survive the Mig-29K crash off Goa on 26 Nov 20. His wife, Mrs Nayaab Randhawa received the tricolour and her husband’s uniform from the Commanding Officer of the squadron.
The son of a naval officer, Commander Nishant was a Qualified Flying Instructor adept on Kiran, Hawk and Mig-29K fighter aircraft. The Indian Navy has lost one of its most accomplished aviators in Cdr Nishant as he had also received advanced strike training with the US Navy.
The officer was also a qualified mountaineer as well as a skilled yachtsman.
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment
Consultative Committee Meeting of M/o Social Justice & Empowerment Held
The Parliamentary Consultative Meeting of the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment held here today.Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment chaired the meeting. The Ministers of State for Social Justice & Empowerment Shri Vijay Sampla and Shri ShriRamdasAthawale were also present. The subject of the meeting was “National Overseas Scholarship Scheme for Scheduled Castes and Divyangjan”
Shri Krishan Pal Gurjarin his address informed the members that the Central Sector Scheme of National Overseas Scholarship  is to facilitate thestudentsfrom low income families belonging to the Scheduled Castes, De-notified Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, Landless Agricultural Laborers and Traditional Artisans category to obtain higher education viz., Master Degree or Ph. D. by studying abroad, thereby improving their Economic and Social status.
He said that the Scholarship scheme for Scheduled castes is in existence since the year 1954-55. It provides financial assistance to the selected candidates of the target population for pursuing higher studies for pursuing Masterslevel courses and Ph.D. in the field of Engineering and Management Pure Science & Applies Science, Agricultural Science and Medicine, International Commerce, Accounting & Finance and Humanities and Social Science.
ShriGurjar said that the Overseas Scholarship scheme for Divyangjan was started in the year 2014-15. From 1st April, 2018, the overseas scholarship is being given to Divyangjan on the basis of their streams viz humanities, science or commerce and not on the basis of their subjects so that more students can be given overseas scholarship.
He said that the advertisements inviting applications from target groups are published every year in leading national dailies and in Employment Newsfor selection of candidates. Detailed Advertisement along with a copy of the scheme guidelines/instructions are uploaded in the website of the Ministry for wider publicity. The awareness of the scheme is also generated through the FM Radio programme “SawarantiJaayenJeevan Ki Raahen” run by the Department.
The Members gave their valuable suggestions for the betterment as well as for broadening the coverage of the scholarship scheme. The detailed Power point presentations highlighting the salient features of the Overseas scholarship scheme for Scheduled castes and for Divyangjans were made on the occasion.
The Members of Parliament who participated in the Consultative Committee Meeting include: Shri K.H. Muniyappa, Shri NageshGodam, Shri VirenderKashyap  and Shri K. Somaprasad, Dr. L. Hanumanthaiah and MahantShambhuprasadjiTundiya .Smt. Neelam Sawhney,Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Smt. Shakuntala D. Gamlin,Secretary, DEPwD, and senior officers of the Ministry also attended the meeting.
Ministry of Textiles
Cotton Corporation of India distributes 5543 Kapas Plucker Machines valuing around Rs. 4 crores to 5543 marginal and small farmers in all the cotton growing states
The Cotton Corporation of India hasso far distributed 5543 kapas plucker machines valuing around Rs. 4 crores to 5543 marginal and small farmers in all the cotton growing states  under Corporate Social Responsibility .
As CCI is a Nodal agency of Govt. of India under Ministry of Textiles for undertaking Minimum Support Price  operations of cotton in the event market rate of seed cotton falls below the MSP rates to protect the cotton farmers from distress sale. Therefore, the CSR budget of the Corporation remains very limited.Despite this constraint, the Corporation distributed kapasplucker machines to marginal and small farmers in all the cotton growing states.
Most of the cotton in India is manually picked which is a labour intensive operation. Unlike other major cotton producing Countries like USA, Australia etc, fully mechanized harvesting by big machines are not successful in India due to small land holdings of cotton farmers in India, sowing/picking pattern  and different climatic condition in different States. Therefore, hand held kapasplucker machine is one of the option to bring down the cost for the farmers and a remedy for contamination at farm level due to manual picking.
Hand held kapasplucker machine is a light weight  machine which has a pair of rollers inside having small edged teeth on their outer periphery and is operated by a light weight 12 volt. Cotton gets entangled with the rollers and is collected directly into collection bag attached to it. Design of machine makes it easy to operate at field and affordable i.e. at nominal cost of Rs. 8000 per machine .
Advantages of kapas plucker machines are as under:
- Reducing the risks of health hazards to cotton farmersin manual picking .
- Improve the cotton harvesting skills, reduce the dependency on scarce & costly labour and make cotton farmers “Atmanirbhar”
- Improve the quality of cotton by reducing contamination at farm level.
- Financial returns to cotton Farmers may improve by reducing harvest cost , lesser trash & contamination and premium on sale of better quality cotton.
- Due to availability of indigenous good quality cotton, the quality of cotton yarn, textiles and value added products will also increase which may increase foreign exchange earnings.
In order to overcome the issues in manual harvesting of cotton and for improvement of quality of cotton by reduction in contamination at farm level, CCI started distribution of kapasplucker machine under its CSR activities.
State-wise Distribution of Kapas Plucker Machines by CCI under CSR is given below:
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State
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Punjab
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Haryana
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Rajasthan
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Gujarat
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Maharashtra
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MP
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Telangana
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Karnataka
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Odisha
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Tamil Nadu
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Total
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No. of hand held KapasPluckerMachines Distributed to Marginal and Small cotton farmers.
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100
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135
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120
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600
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839
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626
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547
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1228
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700
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648
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5543
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NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog to Hold Day-Long Workshop on ‘Innovative Agriculture’ on 25 April
As part of the Azadika Amrit Mahotsav, NITI Aayog is organizing a day-long national workshop on ‘Innovative Agriculture’ on 25 April, 2022.
The workshop will be addressed by Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Parshottam Rupala, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, and NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, Member  Dr Ramesh Chand, and CEO Amitabh Kant.
The workshop is expected to bring together stakeholders working in the field of innovative agriculture and natural-farming practices from India and abroad. Deliberations will be held in key areas related to the promotion of natural farming, itsrole in soil health restoration and climate change mitigation.
Natural farming practices are mostly in harmony with the principles of agro ecology advocated by the Food and Agriculture Organization . It offers viable solutions to improve the livelihood of farmers while reducing the environmental impact of chemical agriculture.
The Hon’ble Prime Minister has emphasized the importance of natural farming on various occasions. Most recently, during a national conclave on natural farming on 16December 2021, he urged that natural farming be turned into a mass movement. The 2022–23 Budget too announced the promotion of chemical-free natural farming throughout the country, starting with fields within a 5-km wide corridor along the Ganga.
You can watch the programme live on NITI Aayog’s Youtube channel.